


Snow - A Voyager Lullaby

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A late night, a cup of tea, a hairbrush.  A story without a<br/>trace of a plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow - A Voyager Lullaby

Kathryn never understood why she preferred her ready room to her  
quarters.  The latter were only a deck away from the bridge; she  
couldn't justify spending such late nights in her office simply on the  
grounds of availability.  But she frequently slept on this couch,  
stretched out under the starfield and staring at the curve of the window  
until she drifted off.  Maybe half a dozen people knew she kept a spare  
uniform tucked away for the mornings after the nights she failed to go  
home.  She could remember racing to get dressed, taking hair pins from  
Tuvok as he offered them and cursing herself for not setting an alarm.    
The shorter hair was better for that.  It was only from habit that she  
still kept bobby pins and claw clips in her desk.

By the Earth calendar, it was deep winter.  If she were in her bedroom  
at home, the cold would still be seeping through the windows.  It would  
still be silent and dark and she would still be wrapped in an afghan on  
the edge of sleep, too lazy or too tired to get undressed.  But if she  
were at home, the sun would eventually come up.  In space, the sun  
didn't come up in the morning.

The door chimed, and she thought she called them in, but nothing  
happened and her brain resumed its drifting.  Sleep and snow, waking in  
the morning to find it was still dark and burrowing back under the  
covers and refusing to get up.  Downstairs, Molly was whining.  The dog  
should really go out for a few minutes, but Mark would do it if she  
didn't.  He must have, because the whimpering stopped.  And then he came  
back and was moving around in the bedroom, sitting by the window and  
watching the snow, getting hit by the worst of the draft, but surely at  
his age he could take care of himself.  It was comforting just to have  
someone else in the room, watching over her.  Those sharp, abrupt blue  
eyes.

"Mmm.  Seven.  How long have you been in here?" Kathryn groaned and  
pulled herself into a semi-sitting position.

"Approximately ten minutes, Captain.  You indicated that I should enter,  
but when I did you appeared to be asleep.  I was . . . unsure as to an  
appropriate course of action."

"Well it was nice of you to knock first.  We'll civilize you yet."

The look she got in return was pinched and slightly offended.  Seven of  
Nine was, for a change, sitting - cross-legged on the floor in front of  
the couch.  She seemed a little rumpled, but Kathryn thought it might  
just be her imagination.  A few blond strands out of place and very  
small dark circles pressed close again the nose hardly qualified the  
girl for dishevelment.

The difficulty Kathryn had in getting to her feet must have been a sign  
of old age.  Several muscles and joints protested vehemently.  Kathryn  
shook herself out, shedding the creases in both body and uniform, padded  
in her stocking feet to the replicator and asked for tea.  Lemon with  
honey.  "So, what brings you here at this time of night, Seven?"  The  
cups were anonymous Starfleet issue.  She handed one to Seven and sank  
back onto the couch.

One metal-traced hand fondled the cup.  Whisper of cybernetic joints.

"Seven?"

Seven dipped her head to the rim of the cup and tasted the tea.  She was  
cautious, at first, wary of the steaming heat, then curious of the  
smell.  A pale pink tongue-tip darted out and collected a few drops,  
precise as a scientific measurement.  Pale eyelids and blond lashes were  
all Kathryn could see.

"Come on Seven.  What's the matter?"  Using her 'Mother Janeway' voice.    
"Want to tell me?"

Still this silence.  Kathryn found she was massaging one of her hands  
with the other, working out a strange warmth and tingling.  She had been  
sleeping, dreaming of something, of home, of Mark holding her hand while  
she dozed.  She'd had it outstretched to him.  Off the bed.

That was it.  The strangest thing: Seven of Nine had been holding her  
hand.

Kathryn set her tea down and came to crouch on the floor in front of the  
girl.  Gently, she extended her index fingers and traced the dark  
smudges pooled under Seven's eyes.  "Where did you get these?"

"I have had difficulty maintaining my regenerative cycle," Seven said,  
still focussed on the teacup.  "The computer had given me to understand  
that you were in your ready room; I thought you might still be awake.  I  
am . . . sorry to have disturbed you."

"No, no."  Kathryn paused and rolled her shoulders, wincing as she heard  
the joints crack.  "I shouldn't have nodded off.  It's all right.  Are  
you saying you can't sleep?"

"I do not "sleep," as such.  I am . . . restless.  I regain  
consciousness at unscheduled times and find myself behaving  
irrationally."

"How so?"

"I find myself looking for things which I do not possess.  I feel as if  
I am missing something, but I do not know what it is."  The next words  
were very human.  "I miss . . ."  Confusion in the blue eyes.

"What, Seven?"

"I miss my mother."

No tears.  Just a shuddering that rocked the remains of her tea.    
Kathryn wrapped an arm around Seven's shoulders and marched her to the  
couch.

"Sit."

The brush was where she'd left it, at the back of her desk drawer.    
Sitting behind Seven, she pulled out the individual pins holding that  
blond hair in place and held them between her lips while she shook the  
mass of it free.  Around Kathryn's fingers, it felt damp from sweat and  
shower moisture that had never evaporated.  

She wrapped one arm across Seven's chest, feeling the collar bone  
against her forearm, and with the other she started brushing.  Long,  
deep strokes, massaging the scalp and pulling bristles through the  
thickest blond hair she'd ever seen.  Kathryn could remember letting her  
mother do that for her, she could remember doing it for herself when she  
needed to relax.  The constant hair brushing of storybook princesses had  
very little to do with boredom and a lot to do with comforting fears.    
No devious wizards, no dragons, no dungeons.  No monsters or  
abandonment.

"Shhh.  No, my Seven should never have to be lonely."

Seven's two hands clasped the supporting forearm in a grip that  
gradually relaxed into gentle contact.  There was no resistance left in  
that hair.  Leaving the brush on a cushion, she eased Seven back against  
her shoulder and rocked them gently back and forth.  Her free hand  
measured the wide cheekbones and the straightness of the nose.

"That's my girl," Kathryn whispered, letting single hairs catch between  
her lips.

How long had it been since she'd held someone like this?  It felt good.    
It would be too much to imagine that she felt a kiss when her palm  
brushed Seven's lips on its way down to cup her chin and cradle the line  
of her throat.  She'd rock this girl until they both relaxed enough to  
sleep and walk her back to bed if it meant she could wrap her arms  
around this body one more time and hold her tight for a minute before  
she said goodnight.

Seven's hair and body smelled warm.  The girl had relaxed enough to doze  
again and Kathryn was drifting back into her fantasy.  They could as  
easily be at home, on Earth.  Twenty years ago, before she vanished,  
Seven could have seen winter.  She was always so pale, she could have  
been made out of ice, the Snow Queen from a fairy tale, wrapped in  
Kathryn's arms because she wasn't willing to let this crystalized child  
go just yet.


End file.
